Here's an idea for cricket on Sky (as a hopeful but pessimistic Sky subscriber and cricket lover):

There are approximately 100000 Indians in New Zealand. If you assume 40,000 households, (based on 2.5 ppl per household), and Sky penetration of 40% - reflecting generally higher than average socioeconomic status, that gives total Indian households that have Sky of 12,000.

Now say, of those 16,000 households, approximately 50% are interested in purchasing a cricket channel - exclusively showing Indian cricket, including matches played in India and overseas, would Sky make its money?

At $400p.a. or $33/month on top of the additional subscription (based on a completely unscientific poll of the Indians I've spoken to over the last 2 months and the price they would be interested in paying), that results in additional revenues of $3.2m a year. Would it be enough for Sky to set up a "cricket channel" and buy the rights for series played by the Indian cricket team?

Keep in mind that this is just the existing customer base, and doesn't include the number of people would sign up for this service. I heard Direct TV in the US started something similar and its customer numbers went up dramatically.

This sounds like a good and viable idea although I do think that it should include as many of the test playing nations as possible. Have you tried suggesting this to SKY, Im sure we would be intersted in reading their response. Perhaps the $33/month might be a bit steep, Personally I would be prepared to pay about half that, but Im probably not as fanatical a cricket follower as some.

I think if it was a dedicated cricket channel (similar to the Rugby channel) you could really widen the potential audience. My wife would be into it but would probably only pay the same amount as the Rugby channel.

My views (except when I am looking out their windows) are not those of my employer.

Nikoftime: This sounds like a good and viable idea although I do think that it should include as many of the test playing nations as possible. Have you tried suggesting this to SKY, Im sure we would be intersted in reading their response. Perhaps the $33/month might be a bit steep, Personally I would be prepared to pay about half that, but Im probably not as fanatical a cricket follower as some.